A/N: Chap 19 review responses in my forums as normal. As for this chapter-this is as close to GOT-levels of R-rating as you're going to get in this fic. And even then, it will not be what you think.

Chapter Twenty: Storm's End

Ser Gilbert Farring woke suddenly.

Dina, the scullery girl he'd taken to warm his bed when King Stannis named him Castellan, stiffened beside him. "M'lord? Are you well?"

"Aye, just thought I heard something."

"Mmmm." The girl had already slipped back into sleep.

Ser Gilbert knew he would not return to sleep. With a tired sigh, he climbed from the bed that once housed King Renly, and before that King Robert himself as a boy, and left the girl to her slumber. She'd served well enough to warm his bed, he'd let her sleep on 'til morning.

He rinsed his mouth with wine and brushed away the remnants of the previous night's meal from his teeth with a toothing twig, made water into the pale that Dina would empty later, then pulled on his heavy cotton trousers, cotton tunic and mail. He didn't bother with a helmet as he strapped his sword about his waist and left his chambers.

The castle of Storm's End that had been the ancestral seat of the Baratheons and the Storm King's of old now stood almost empty. Most of the castle staff had fled after Renly's death; those that remained finally gave their allegiance to Stannis. But now Stannis had withdrawn as well, brooding in the Dragonstone with the small handful of his followers. That left only two hundred men to hold the castle against a besieging Tyrell army of five thousand.

The great hall of the castle sat all but empty. The men of the dogwatch had just been relieved and were eating their daily ration of gruel and salt pork when he entered. They saluted him tiredly, but he waved them down.

"Eat your food, boys. The Gods know when we'll get another shipment." He grabbed his own ration, no more than they, and ate quickly before following his own morning routine of walking the curtain walls.

His steps took him to the north wall and the field that housed Mace Tyrell and his army. It did not surprise him to find his fellow knight and the former Castellan already there, leaning over the ramparts. A thin man with curly black hair and a silver-streaked beard, Lord Elwood Meadows was himself Lord of Grassfield Keep.

The man should have been out there with the Tyrells, Ser Gilbert thought to himself. The Meadows were a Reach family who owed allegiance to House Tyrell. Lord Elwood was also, however, a cousin to the Fossoways, who numbered among Stannis's few loyal followers. Once Renly mysteriously died in the night from an invisible assassin, Lord Elwood quickly surrendered to Stannis.

He'd remained since, as much a hostage as a liegeman.

"What news, Lord Elwood?" he asked.

"Movement, Ser Farring. Look for yourself. The van is pulling out."

"What do you say?" Ser Gilbert ran to the man's side. He noticed a handful of their men around them, also staring down in wonder.

On the field below the castle walls, just out of reach of Gilbert's archers, he saw Tyrell soldiers gathering their tents and assembling their herds of meat animals. He saw carts driven by oxen being loaded with food and supplies. The withdrawal took the entire morning, but a few candles after midday, the vast majority of the Tyrell host marched away.

Below, Gilbert saw perhaps four or five hundred remain. They didn't even bother with any defensive fortification. They were a token-a pittance to their masters in King's Landing. It angered him that he didn't have enough men to do anything about it. If he had even a hundred more, he'd break the siege easily.

~~Quintessence~~

~~Quintessence~~

The fish was a welcome change to the gruel. A trader had braved the Dragon Queen's raiders and offered them a hull full of grain, onions, turnips and two large baskets of fish. It was at best a week's supply, but it was a week's supply they hadn't had before.

Ser Gilbert was grateful enough to invite the brave smuggler and his crew to the great hall to sup with them. Sadly, without salt or spices the fare was sparse, but the honor of joining them in the hall of the Storm Kings more than made up for the plain food.

Like many merchants, the captain of the cog was an older man who sailed with his daughter. He looked like a seaman with his weathered skin and the squint of his eyes, obviously accustomed to looking over the horizon for sails. His daughter was a freakishly tall girl, a little homely in the face but light, strong and striking in her gaze. She had green eyes, and wore a surprisingly expensive ruby earring for a trader's daughter.

Naturally, conversation turned to the dragon queen.

"You've met her?" Lord Elwood asked.

"Aye, I've had the honor," Oleo declared.

His daughter hid a smile behind a crust of bread. "Does staring at her from across the bow of another ship count as meeting, father?"

Rather than be offended, the old captain chuckled. "Perchance I misspoke. I've seen her, as close as we are now, m'lord."

"On what occasion?"

"In Pentos, my lord. I can't claim to know what business brought her there, but the Pentosi welcomed her with open arms. She arrived on the back of her black dragon, the one she calls Temeraire. She let city children come and touch the beasts's scales. She is very popular in the Free Cities, my lord."

The captain's daughter sat between her father and the five crewmen who sailed with them. Across the table that ran down the center of the hall, the girl's alluring green eyes noticed the chain around Maester Jurne's neck. Like most Maesters, the man was far from his youth, being a rotund fellow with a sparse white beard, a hooked beak of a nose and a natural pate atop his liver-spotted head.

"Are you a Maester?" the daughter, Taylor, asked the man. "I've often heard of your order. That's copper in your chain. That means history, right?"

Jurne blinked up at her, startled to be spoken to by a woman. "Why, yes. Yes, it is, my dear."

The girl looked about the ancient stones of the keep. "Do you know the history of this keep? It feels ancient!"

The Maester looked to Ser Gilbert. "The girl and her father brought food where no others have," he decided magnanimously. "Surely that's worth a tale."

"Oh, how wonderful!" the Maester said. "The history is quite remarkable. The foundation and the first level of the curtain walls date back almost ten thousand years! Legend has it that Durran, the first Storm King, fell in love with Elenei, a daughter of the sea god and the goddess of the wind. She was powerful and beautiful as only a goddess could be, and yet she was won over by Durran's strength and love of her. They planned to wed, but the jealous sea god and goddess of the wind raised a great storm and slaughtered all of Durran's guests. From that moment, he was named Durran Godsgrief. He declared war against sea god."

The daughter looked suitably impressed, but also confused. "How does one declare war against the gods?"

"By failing to surrender to them, my dear," old Jurne said. His cheeks had reddened with the attention. "It is said that Durran raised six castles, each larger and stronger than the last, but each time the gods struck and tore them down.

"With his last castle, though, legends say his beloved sought out help from the Children in the Forest. They came and told him that the foundation stones had to be slaked in the blood of those who hated him most. And so he rode out into the lands now known as the Crownlands, and sought out his enemies. He conquered the surrounding land and brought those who hated him most back, where he cut their throats and bled them over the foundation stones of his castle walls. Still others say that Bran the Builder himself, who later built the Wall, advised him on its construction.

"Either way he built the greatest castle of his age, raising the walls higher than had ever been seen, with the great central keep to house all his people, and to ensure he and his beloved were safe from her parent's anger. For many centuries, this was also known as Durran's Defiance. He was the first of the great Storm Kings of House Durrandon, and ruled from this castle for thousands of years. My Lord King Stannis is a descendant of those same kings."

The merchant captain's daughter clapped her hand to table in delight. "What a wonderful tale, Maester! Thank you for sharing those words."

Though she was not the most beautiful woman in the world, Ser Gilbert had to admit the merchant's daughter had a very becoming smile. It changed her face and countenance into one more than attractive. She met his gaze and blushed demurely before looking down to her trencher of baked fish and sliced turnips.

Right. I'm fucking that one tonight.

"Where will you go next?" Lord Elwood asked the captain.

"Back to Essos to resupply," the captain said. "Perhaps we'll stop at Dragonstone."

"The King has a habit of rewarding those who bring his people provisions," Elwood agreed. "I'm frankly amazed that the Dragon Queen's ships haven't taken you."

"We've been boarded five times," the captain said. "Each time they searched for men and weapons. And each time they let us be when they saw we had neither."

Ser Gilbert raised a brow at that news. From what the few ravens they'd received from Dragonstone said, the Dragon Queen's fleet had almost embargoed the entirety of the Reach and the Crownlands.

"We'd be pleased to offer you quarters tonight," Ser Gilbert said. "As you can see, we have plenty of room."

The daughter's striking eyes widened in awe. "M'lord, you'd...you'd let us stay in such a magnificent place?"

"We might find a room or two," Lord Elwood said, clearly tickled by the girl's awe.

Two rooms. That one I'll have alone, Ser Gilbert thought.

When Dina came to Ser Gilbert that night, he sent her away with a kiss and a copper. He had other quarry to occupy his mind. As the captain and his daughter had been shown to their chambers, Gilbert couldn't help but notice how long the girl's legs were within her sailor's cotton trousers, or how the fabric clung to her backside. She was no fainting noblewoman. She had muscles about her arms and not an ounce of fat about her that he could see, and he had no doubt she'd be a good tussle in bed.

He dressed down in his woolen trousers and a clean linen tunic. He'd left his sword behind and carried only his dagger as he left his chambers.

After months of holding the castle for Stannis, Ser Gilbert had come to realize that he hated Storm's End. The place was bleak, beset by constant storms like the one he could hear blowing without even now. The wind made the tower hum as air escaped through the narrow shuttered windows.

The air stank of age-old rot. Even changing the rushes did little to aid the smell. And though he walked with the candle lantern held high about his head, the dark stone walls pressed down upon him in silent gloom. The castle barely had any tapestries to soften the walls. The Baratheons had been hard men through the ages, and that was seen in the dim decorations of their ancestral home.

Which begs the question of how a catamite such as Renly was born from such a place.

He reached the room that held the girl. He'd pointedly separated her from her father by several doors. He knocked once very lightly and waited until the door opened.

She stood in a loose linen gown, lit from behind by the brazier in her room. The fabric was so thin he could see the outline of her modest breasts and how they tented against her fabric. She stared at him with wide eyes. "My lord!" she whispered. Her cheeks flared red. "What are you doing here?"

"Can you not guess, child?" Ser Gilbert said, staring hungrily at her.

"But my lord! What will my father think?"

Ser Gilbert pushed his way into the room and closed the door behind him. "Why should he know? You're no little maiden, but a woman grown. And a beautiful one at that." He hung the lantern on its sconce by the door and stepped to her. Though she seemed to shrink a little at his approach, she did not back away. Instead, she clutched her hands together and folded her shoulders forward, pushing her breasts together in an enticing away against the thin fabric of her gown.

"You think I'm beautiful, my lord?" she whispered. "My father says I am too homely for a proper husband."

Gilbert felt such lust he could barely contain himself. He grabbed her then and pulled the linen gown down, revealing glistening skin and...and...scars? A pucker scar at hollow of her shoulder, as if she'd been shot more than once by an arrow. He saw a long line of a scar on her bare thigh. But he also saw a slim stomach with muscles he could trace. Her linen underclothing barely hid her sex from him, and he found himself wanting to taste her.

Her hands took his beard and lifted his eyes up to hers. "I could be yours, Ser Gilbert," she hummed to him. "I could give you such pleasure as to drive you mad. I learned so much from my mother. She was from Lys. She taught me all her secrets." Taylor pulled him so close he could feel the swell of her breasts through the fabric of his tunic. She felt her lips brushing against his ears.

"But before I can show you, I need you to go to the postern gate and let my friends in," she said. "You'll like them, they're very loyal. Let my friends in, Ser Gilbert, and come back to me. Come back, and I will give you such pleasure your mind will melt with it."

He blinked and pulled back until her black and gold eyes filled his vision. When did they change color? He dismissed the thought. The lust and hunger made him thrum, like a drum in his chest that his cock needed to march to. "Yes," he agreed. "Yes, I'll let your friends in. Will you be waiting for me?"

"I will," she promised. "Be quick, my love. I need you in me this night!"

Gilbert spun from her with a cry, took up the lantern, and fled her room at a run. The garrison was so small he didn't pass a single soldier standing watch within the castle. Beyond, cold rain blasted the bailey between the great central keep and the wall. He ran across the sodden ground, putting his feet through the mud until he reached the postern gate that looked out over the docks at the base of the limestone cliffs below. There two guards stood duty, Fossoway men.

"Ser Gilbert, what are you doing out on a night like this?" one of the guards said. "Is anything amiss?"

"We have friends at the gate, lads," Ser Gilbert said. "We need to let them in."

"Reinforcements, m'lord?"

Of course! That had to be what that the maid meant. Her friends were there to save them and break the siege! "Yes, that's it! We're going to break the siege. Open the gate!"

With the orders given and the men moving to obey, he turned and ran back to the keep. The storm crashed against the castle, as if the old gods once again voiced their anger that he, the Castellan of the castle, would bed what could only have been Elenei reborn! He entered the keep proper and ran up the seemingly endless stone steps until he reached the room where his beloved waited. He burst into the room, and there she stood as he left her, dressed only in her linen smallcloths draped low about her hips. Her golden eyes were wide, seeming to catch the fire as he entered.

"It's done, my lord? You let my friends in?"

"Aye, the reinforcements came."

"Reinforcements." She smiled, though he felt a slight discordance for its lack of romance. "That's good, because this is kind of creepy." She waived a hand, and before his eyes she changed. Instead of a near naked lass ready for bedding, he saw a tall woman in plate and a weighted, armored kilt hanging to her knees. A belt of some foreign material hung around her waist, and her rich black hair was hung back with a golden circlet of delicate make. Only the gold of her eyes remained.

"I don't understand," Gilbert confessed.

"I'm the Dragon Queen, Ser Gilbert, and you just handed me the only castle I really doubted I could take it without heavy losses. So, you know, thanks for that."

He stood frozen in place. In the distance, echoing through the hall, he heard the sound of steel on steel, and a voice shouting the alarm.

"You whore," he whispered. "We took you into this place. We broke bread with you and shared our food with you…"

"Technically, you shared our food with us," the whore of a queen said. "But don't worry, I won't kill you."

"Kill me? You?" He pulled his dagger and charged her. He barely even saw how her foot came up at an impossible angle, catching his chin with a blow sufficient to blacken the world.

~~Quintessence~~

~~Quintessence~~

Ser Gilbert woke to the sound of gulls crying. He'd hated the sound almost since his arrival at Storm's End. They seemed even louder than normal, though, as if they'd made their way into his chamber. It would explain the chill in the air, if his shutters were open and his fire out.

When he opened his eyes, he became aware instantly of the fact he was not in his room. With a gasp, he tried to sit up only for his bound hands to hamper him. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Gilbert, you fool, calm down. I'll help you sit up."

That was Lord Elwood. With his shoulder, he helped Gilbert right himself. In doing so, he realized that he sat in the narrow path between the castle and the bay, looking out over the water. What he saw made his gut clench. As the sun rose, he saw at least ten massive hulks with the three-headed red Targaryen dragon on their sails docked at the same dock that hosted the lying merchant the previous day. He watched, astonished and horrified, as thousands of men marched off the ships and up the switch back path that led up the white limestone cliffs.

"How…"

"Oh, good, you're all awake."

Gilbert shook off his sleep, and the sharp pain in his jaw from the previous night, and saw the Dragon Queen herself walking toward him. Blinking, he looked to either side to see the majority of the garrison on the path on either side, all bound as he was. A dark-skinned Summer Islander girl walked at the queen's side, and behind her two foreign soldiers in boiled leather armor with spears and shields.

"You!" Gilbert hissed. "You lying…"

Before he moved, one of the soldiers darted forward with spear in hand, placing it's point to Gilbert's neck.

"Careful, Ser Gilbert," the Queen said. "My Unsullied are very sensitive men. They don't like it when people say mean things about me. Do you, Gray Worm?"

"No, Aeksiae," the eponymous Grey Worm said in stilted, accented words.

"The Tyrell host will not let you keep this castle for long," Lord Elwood said.

The Dragon Queen smiled. "I sent five thousand mercenaries up the Mander to sack Highgarden. Mace Tyrell is even now sending every one of his soldiers marching west to protect his home. The small pittance he left here has been dealt with. The only thing between us and King's Landing is a handful of Lannisters."

"You mean to kill us, then?" Ser Gilbert spat.

"No. Because even if it was our food, you shared a meal with me. I needed this caste fast, and without loss of life, and with your help I've accomplished that, Ser Gilbert. So, in return I plan to give you and those who wish to go with you the sloop I arrived in. Sail to Dragonstone and give Stannis Baratheon a message."

She stood right over him. This close, he saw that her boots were unlike anything he'd ever seen-black and of a material never before seen. They rose up until they were lost under the steep greaves she wore over her knees and thighs.

"Tell your Lord Stannis to ask his priestess to look into the fire and see his future. Tell him to ask who is the true Prince Who Was Promised, the younger brother of a failed king, or the queen who brings dragons back to Westeros? His Ser Davos was rejected by the Iron Bank-they know a losing bet when they see one. He has no army, he has no claim to the throne since the entire Baratheon line are usurpers of my family. And he has no hope of victory. Tell him, though, that if he bends the knee I will forgive his brother's betrayal of my family and let him resume his rightful place as Lord of Storm's End."

"He'll curse you to the hells and fight on," Ser Gilbert said.

"No, Sir Gilbert. He'll starve. He's on an island without friends, and the seas are mine. Grey Worm, I believe we've made our intent clear. Let's get these gentlemen to their king. I have a kingdom to conquer."